Curation – In Search Of

Human OS, Stupid and Lazy, Leadership, Story Scope

Posted on October 28, 2011Leave a comment

Upgrade to the Human Operating System – BusinessWeek

I read this article, and it seemed to me to say for organizations in general, what Agile has done for software development teams. Moving from a command and control – process/factory model, to a model that allows/incents/expects humans to invent, analyze, innovate, figure out. Is it possible that we are finally ready to tranform organization structure from its industrial age roots into an information age – service orientation. How many organizations say “our people are our most valuable resource” – but act like they have FTE’s – (HR/Manager speak for “universal man widgets”).

Seth’s Blog: Stupid and lazy

I highly recommend that you evaluate every difficult thing that is on your plate, and decide whether it is lack of talent/skill/knowledge or simply lack of motivation that is getting in your way. I hate this evaluation, because it always comes out the same. Arrgh!

Seth’s Blog: The difference between management and leadership

This short post was a huge shot in the arm for me this week. Management is about constraints, leadership is about movement. Movement and constraint are opposing forces. Dang! Now that I am not in a staff management role (first time since ’04) this is much easier to see.

Stories, Epics and Themes | Mike Cohn’s Blog – Succeeding With Agile®

Mike Cohn is pretty much “the man” on user stories. I have had conversations with lots of agilists about stories epics and themes (story scope). What nobody (including Mike) really wants to get into is whether stories are about business capabilities or software capability. IMHO – when it comes to “requirements” for software – everything (not just agile) craps out on this divide. And it is a critical division because all the value is on one side, and all the work is on the other. Hmm. Never the less – I thought this was one of the best posts on story scope I have read in a long time.

Curation Collection #2

Posted on October 7, 2011Leave a comment

http://pmboos.posterous.com/how-to-initiate-agile-adoption-within-a-large

“Q: What change models work? Q: How ot be agents of change? (as coaches)” This was an insightful list of questions related to enterprise agile adoption. I like questions because they are less likely than answers to lead to one-size-fits-all-suits-none solutions.

http://www.brepettis.com/blog/2009/3/3/the-cult-of-done-manifesto.html

I like the cult of done. I like the manifesto – I posted the poster included several places in my workplace. Good reminder of why done is important. “Done is the engine of MORE!”

http://www.jrothman.com/blog/mpd/2011/09/agile-power-and-culture.html

An interesting look at the way that the “power culture” of an organization interacts with agile adoption strategy. When your organizational culture has a high power index in the large, then every reorg or management change presents a challenge to agile adoption. “When I see organizations with a high power differential, they keep falling back to command-and-control approaches, because the power differential is so ingrained in their culture.”

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/09/minimum-viable-personality.html

Interesting look at product from a VC perspective. Caused me to ask how people see me as a product. I work inside “the enterprise” I am not marketing product to VC, but I constantly market myself to others. “CHICKEN LIVE IN CAGE. NO CAN HAVE PERSONALITY INSIDE CAGE.” — smash cage, light barn on fire do that you win…

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– @paul_boos @bre @johannarothman #grimlockquotes

Inaugural Curation Post…

Posted on September 30, 2011Leave a comment

This week I am making good on my intent to post some of what I’ve been reading and found valuable.

agile42 | Feature Injection Applied to Service Delivery

I spent a bit of time reading about Feature Injection as a different way (than other agile processes) at dealing with requirements. I really am intrigued, and will try to adjust my requirements practice to include these concepts.

Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue?

This also was interesting – as it clearly reflects what we all experience – decisions take mental energy, and making decisions when mentally tired is sub-optimal. One could infer from this how to re-arrange one’s schedule to make better decisions, or to be less mentally tired when decisions are needful.

Time to ditch “The Backlog” « The IT Risk Manager

This also was provocative – not because having a backlog is a bad thing, but because how we name things allows others to infer things from the connotative meaning in that naming.

Calamity howlers & positively selecting with surprise « Freckle Time Tracking

A “calamity howler” (CH) is a persistently negative individual who predicts rack & ruin, frequently and at the top of his voice. It’s a great term that was especially popular in political writings back in the mid-to-late 1800′s but has since fell out of disuse. — who is the CH on your current project or in your current team.